A Bedroom in the Gazebo
by Anise
Summary: Four years ago, Ginny left Draco behind at the gazebo on the grounds of Malfoy Manor. Now, she returns to find a bittersweet conclusion. D/G pairing.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: The idea of an Inanim is part of Aniseworld canon. They're sentient objects that are loyal to a very old family, such as the Malfoys. Just think of everything in the _Beauty and the Beast_ castle, okay? ;)

The Bedroom in the Gazebo.

Ginny stood at the small rental car counter in Shrewton and dug her nails into her palms. The woman typed something on her computer keyboard in a hunt-and-peck fashion, each letter seeming to take about ten minutes to find. She finally turned round, beaming a wide smile from a pleasant, comfortable face.

"Here you are, dear." She handed Ginny the keys. "Unlimited mileage. Not that you're likely to reach your limit in this neighborhood!" She chuckled for an unconscionably long time.

_Hurry_, thought Ginny. _Finish! Let me get out of here!_

"So where do you plan to drive, dear?"

"Oh… around." Ginny tried to fix a smile on her face, but she could tell that it was a lot closer to a grimace.

"You can't go up to Stonehenge, you know, dear. Unless you're one of those odd neo-reconstructionist Druids."

"I'm not. I just want to… er… look around."

"If you want to go to the burned-out house, you're not the only looky-loo. But it's all blocked off."

She felt as if her heart had stopped. "The… the what?"

Some other house, she thought with relief, just a second later. It had to be. Of course, too bad for whoever's house it was, but—

"Oh, a very big mansion," said the woman.

Her heart was thumping now. "Where… where was it, exactly?"

"About a mile from Stonehenge, I'd say. It's one of the few that isn't open to tourists. Most of the old families are a bit rag-tag nowadays. Some cousin or other of Prince Michael of Kent once sold the "Royal Windsor Line" of china on an American shopping network, can you imagine? But _this_ family had a great deal of money."

"What were they called?" Ginny could hear how faint her own voice was. She'd gotten this far. She'd gotten an airline ticket, she'd made it through security. She'd waited to rent a car until getting very close to her destination, knowing that she'd have a better chance of finding what she sought if she chose a Muggle conveyance that had at least been in the area before she got here. She'd rented cars during her year in America, so she knew how to behave at a rental counter. She'd even gotten a driver's license. So she wasn't going to allow a mistake like the one about this house to throw her. Because it had to be a mistake. It was impossible for this story to be anything else.

The woman had been getting the car keys out from behind the counter, but she paused to answer. "The Malfoys, I believe."

Ginny clutched onto the counter to stay upright. This was impossible. It. Was. Not. Possible. Malfoy Manor had always been wound round with spells more powerful than those that any witch or wizard could ever have learned, spells that were in the stones themselves, in the very bones of the house. Earth magic, and deeper, even older, the kind of magic that she didn't particularly want to think about, and had more or less successfully avoided remembering for a long time. At any rate, no Muggle had ever known anything about its existence, and none ever could. And this woman on the other side of the counter was a Muggle; Ginny knew that with all of her magical senses.

"Are you all right, dear?" the woman asked in a kindly voice.

"Yes," Ginny replied mechanically.

" It's the early morning light, I suppose. It never gives one any color."

"Yes. I'm sure that's all it is. Tell me, how long had the house been there?"

"Bless you, for five or six hundred years at least, I should think. But then, I suppose that you wouldn't have known…"

There was a strange look on the woman's face as she said the words. Ginny leaned closer. "No, I don't know. I've never heard anything about this house. What's the history? Could you tell me anything about that?"

"Well, I…" The woman's eyes went vague. "I really don't know. I imagine you could learn more at the local library."

"I'm sure I could," said Ginny. "Thank you."

She was able to make it all the way to the car, and then she got in, slumped against the steering wheel, and stared fiercely ahead, determined not to cry.

There was no doubt about it. She had just seen the results of some kind of spell. But it couldn't have been one of the Befuddlement variety. No, it was the opposite sort, if anything, as if this Muggle woman had been permitted to know something that she should not and could not have known without a magical revealing. She clearly didn't know everything, but she knew that Malfoy Manor existed. Oh, Gods, what could this mean?

_I could have learned a lot more before now,_ she thought_. I didn't want to. Ignorance was not bliss, but I chose it anyway. Be honest with yourself about that at least, Ginny Potter._ No. Ginny Weasley. It had been over a year now since she'd given up the right to use that name, but she still fell into those slips, even when thinking to herself. She was going back to her maiden name, regardless of what anyone thought about it. There was no divorce in the wizarding world; she'd gotten a Muggle divorce from Harry, perfectly aware that most of the people she'd always known would not recognize it. She almost wished she could pick yet another name, something that marked her as separate and distinct, now that her mother had made it so very clear that she'd been a disappointment to the Weasleys.

There was a road visible to Muggles that had always led part of the way up to the Manor, the A344. She drove from Shrewton to Wiltshire down the smooth asphalt, remembering how it eventually split off into the road to the parking area for Stonehenge. Surely, surely that would happen again.

But it didn't. The car kept driving without a bump or interruption, the road perfectly straight. It was a very warm June day, but icy chills ran up her arms, raising the tiny hairs, forming goosebumps.

There was a chain-link fence around the property where the road ended. She got out of the car and slowly looked around. She wasn't close enough to really recognize anything—the trees were very thick here, although not as old as the ones near the areas she'd been. But she though that she was somewhere in the area of the west wing.

A policeman stood in front of the fence, his arms crossed.

"Sorry, lady. I can't let you through. It's not safe." He had a broad northeastern American accent.

"I'm sure it's not," said Ginny. "Where are you from, uh, officer?"

"New Jersey. Camden. You know it?"

"I know where it is." She looked around, trying to collect herself. "Do you like it here."

"Yeah, sure. Great people. Less chance of getting shot, right?" He chuckled.

Maybe so, thought Ginny. But there were other dangers, ones that this Muggle knew nothing about.

"You better turn back now," he said.

"Right," said Ginny. "I'll go back the way I came now."

She got in her car and started on the way back down the road. He waved pleasantly at her, but one hand felt at his hip. She knew it must have been an instinctive reaching out for the gun that British police weren't allowed to carry. But it was still a gesture that reminded her of the wizards she hadn't seen in the past year. Again, though, this man was undoubtedly a Muggle.

Whoever was responsible for this hadn't wanted to risk local policemen, she thought. There was always the chance that they might remember too much, or rather, might remember that they weren't supposed to know anything at all about the existence of Malfoy Manor. And there had been some kind of extra, subtle spell used too, something that left a vague impression in any Muggle's mind that they needed to stay away, and to keep others away too. She would bet on that being the truth.

Ginny tried to think. There was another way. She remembered it. The magic was stronger there, and that could mean that maybe, just maybe, non-magical people couldn't go anywhere near it. She might be able to get through. It was a chance, anyway.

She began driving, letting her mind drift, willing herself to be elsewhere.

And then there she was, driving down a long, winding road set with smooth cobblestones and shaded on either side by impenetrable stands of ancient oaks. Her throat tightened. They had walked here once, she and—

She managed to cut the thought off as abruptly as if she'd used a knife.

Another turn, a left, a right, and then the road would smooth out. She was almost sure she remembered the directions correctly. The trees were at their thickest now, leaning over the little car with menacing dark fingers.

The road ended at a cast iron gate, decorated with sinuous snakes. She parked the car and went up to it, putting out her hand, testing the cold metal. She could see it, she could even touch it, but that proved nothing. There was the slight hum of magic; it hadn't been stripped away entirely. But she might have been able to find it simply because any magical person could have done so. The real question was whether or not she could get through it.

There was one way to find out.

She pushed at part of the gate. It didn't move; the large, ornate lock held the two halves tightly together. She took out her wand and tapped it on the bars. They trembled; her arm trembled too, as she felt the vibrations of magic. She was sure, now, that this was not part of the house that had been dragged into the light, dragged out of whatever magical dimension where it had so long existed.

Of course, that also meant that it wasn't letting her in. Only a Malfoy could have opened it.

Unless…

She steeled herself.


	2. Journey's End

a/n: Thanks to all readers and reviewers, especially brianaangel, qsklue, and Marinka.

CHAPTER TWO.

"I am Ginny Weasley," she whispered.

The lock quivered.

"I am she who bonded with the Malfoy heir."

There was a squeak of metal, a rattling.

She took a deep breath. "I claim the right of initiation magic."

The lock grew a long face with a lifted brow and a supercilious air about the long, thin nose.

"Do you now," said Obfirmo. Ginny recognized the Malfoy lock. She squirmed, feeling like a young, guilty girl again, as she had been when she stood at this gate with… with the man she wouldn't think about, years ago, when they had been only boy and girl, before adulthood was thrust on both of them too soon.

"Yes. I do," she said defiantly.

"Well, you're certainly not the first misbehaving member of the Weasley clan I've ever known. There was a certain Amalthea Wellesley who served as Elizabeth I's maid of honor in 1583, if I'm not much mistaken, which, of course, I never am."

"Um, yes, I'm sure you're not. Mistaken, I mean. You look like a lock who's always right," said Ginny, hoping that she wasn't laying on the flattery too thickly.

Obfirmo preened. "More often than not, I would say… nothing like that unfortunate Royal Doulton teapot, who can scarcely be called a proper Inanim at all. But to return to the relevant subject, I'm afraid that one couldn't accurately say that the lovely Mistress Amalthea was a _maid_. She dallied with Sir Ingram Malfoy a bit too frequently to deserve that appellation. In fact, she cut quite a swath through the Tudor court, and was referred to as the Wanton Wellesley  
Wench, if I'm not much—"

Ginny put her hands on her hips and glared. "Look, I've never done anything like that, and you know it! _So much for diplomacy, _she thought just a bit too late.

Obfirmo smiled. "Oh, I know very well that you haven't done, my dear. You more than fit the claimed qualification. In fact, if the Inanim candlestick in the gazebo is to be taken as a trusted witness—"

"Thank you." She would not blush in front of a lock.

The gate swung wide.

There was no road after this, so Ginny left the car parked in a patch of short grass. She walked forward slowly. The trees thinned abruptly, much too fast, giving her no time to prepare herself for what she was about to see. She stopped short. The ruin of Malfoy Manor loomed over the horizon.

Ginny realized that she was biting her lip until she tasted blood in order to avoid making any sound at all.

She realized now that she had thought, she had hoped, she had believed that this great house still stood intact, that the fire had been some kind of strange cover story. That the graceful sweeping curve of the exterior still stood like a figure from a dream, the peacocks strutting across the lawn.

All she could think of for a stupid moment were the old photographs of ruined houses in Charleston and Atlanta after the American Civil War, the ones she'd studied during her courses of architectural restoration. The blackened walls. The fallen timbers. The sparkling shattered glass. The vast, dark rectangles that formed the foundation. This was what a great house became when it had been destroyed by fire.

Except that a place like the Manor could never really be destroyed. It just couldn't. And she remembered so much more to it than could have been accounted for by what she saw now, a larger complex of buildings and gardens and guest houses than anything that could have fit on the stretch of land she was looking at.

She wasn't going to give up yet.

Eventually, she found landmarks. One blackened wall had been part of the wing with all the new bedrooms, she thought. She walked around the area, carefully skirting the sunken ground and fallen stones. If she went all the way to the back and the right, she should be at the location of the dungeons. A shiver ran through her at the memory of the last time she'd seen them. A memory she could not afford to indulge in.

At the very edge of an abandoned rose garden, she saw a small building, still intact. A gazebo, one that also served as a gatekeeper's lodge. There was a kitchen, a bathroom, a bedroom…

Oh, she remembered that bedroom all too well. It had been a safe place to go, a hidden place, and one night, they had gone there.

Ginny knew that she should leave now, before it was too late. But then, she thought, it had been too late for a long time. By the time she'd gotten off the plane, no, by the time she'd bought tickets, no, by the time she'd fixed on this idea in the first place, it was already much too late. Her feet were set inexorably on this path.

There was a small inset of blue stained glass above the oak door. _Resurgam, _the twining lead letters read above the image of a coiled snake.

The door opened before she even knocked, which didn't surprise her at all. _He _stood in the front hall. Tall, straight, stiff, thinner than she remembered him, a little haggard. He was more beautiful than ever.

"What are you doing here?" asked Draco Malfoy.

Now that the time had come, her words were stuck in her throat.

His mouth twisted into a sneer. "Come to gloat, Weasley?"

His use of her last name was not lost on her. Of course, it had been a long time since he had used any name at all for her, and it seemed much longer than the four years it had really been. They had never spoken since that last time she had met him here, that last secret time, the time both bitter and sweet. She had seen him standing with his mother in the Great Hall after the war had ended, looking lost and bewildered and very young, and she had turned away from him and not spoken a word.

"You know that I haven't," she said.

"Oh? Seems a shame to waste the opportunity, really."

"I'm not interested in gloating."

He shrugged, as if the effort of keeping up a façade of his old self were too exhausting. "Then what is it that you do want?"

"Can I come in?"

"You might as well."

They sat at the old oak table in the kitchen. The closed bedroom door was just to the left; she refused to look at it. Now that the sunlight was full on him, she could see that he looked utterly exhausted. But the planes of his face were no less perfect.

"To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?" he asked. "Or are you determined to keep it to yourself?"

"I heard that you were here." She didn't fool herself into thinking that he didn't know she hadn't really answered his question. But now that the time had come, she had no idea what kind of answer she could really give to him.

"Yes, I'm here. I wasn't in the house at the time of the fire. I'm sure that a great many people think it was a pity that I wasn't." He gave a short laugh.

"I… I didn't know there was a fire," she said.

He studied her face. "No. I see that you didn't."

He had always been able to read her. She sat back a little, letting part of her hair fall aslant over a cheekbone.

Draco's voice was almost gentle when he spoke again. "Walk with me."

They walked at the very edge of the land on the far side, where the forest bordered Malfoy property. He had once told her not to try to walk there alone, she remembered. It was a place ancient beyond imagining, and it had little to do with humans, even wizards. The trees at the border parted for him, for a Malfoy, one of the family who had lived on this land while the Druids hauled stone across three hundred miles of Britain to build Stonehenge. But the long grass and branches seemed willing to move aside for her sake, too. The land itself must recognize her bond with him, as long ago as it had been.

He stopped when they approached the house itself, one of the wings that had burned. Ginny couldn't look at it.

"Never be afraid to look," he said, and she did. She blinked back tears, fiercely.

"I…" she began.

"You might just as well say what you're thinking, Weasley."

"I was thinking that I just don't understand how it could have happened," she said.

"Great-grandfather Augustus was fool enough to build onto the Manor without the proper magical protection," said Draco. "Those are the parts which burned, and they border on the land that Muggles can now see." He kept staring across the fields.

"How much of it could he have built?" asked Ginny. "At least half the house is gone."

"Oh, that wasn't the end of his idiocy. He… borrowed magic from other parts of the manor, shall we say. He left them unprotected. Of course, it's safe to say that he wasn't predicting this sort of ending to the grandeur that was Malfoy Manor." 

_I'm sorry_, she wanted to say. She knew exactly how much he would despise hearing those words, especially from her.

"I suppose you're wondering how it happened," said Draco. "The precise details, I mean."

"You don't have to tell—"

"But I will, if only so that you won't ever wonder about it all." Draco kept staring straight ahead.

"Potter was responsible. No, not deliberately. But he was pursuing McNair during the cleanup right after the war. McNair was running through the newer part of the forest that led here; he knew it fairly well, you see. Potter knew that the wards had been sensitized to him during his brief visit here in his seventh year. One of them went off. McNair was caught in it. But so was the Manor, or most of it, at any rate." He spoke in short, clipped sentences, as if each word formed a separate penance that he had set upon himself, as if she were the only human on earth who could serve as his confessor.

"So that was it," she said, when he seemed to have finished.

"You really didn't know anything at all?" asked Draco.

"No. I mean, I could have known. I just… didn't want to, I guess," she said.

"Mm." Draco stood as still as a pale marble statue, and his eyes did not flicker even once. She had a sudden desire to goad him.

"So you know it was Harry. I'd have thought you'd want revenge."

"Not particularly."

"I thought that revenge was part of the Malfoy code."

"Yes, well, I wasn't a terribly good specimen of the illustrious name by the end, was I? A rotten Malfoy, a rotten Death Eater… I haven't made the greatest success of my life to date, I'd say."

She wanted to put out her hand, to touch his arm, to feel the warmth of his skin through the thin linen sleeve. She did not move. The soft hum of the crickets rose around them both in the silence, and the baked-sun scent of the long grass was making her dizzy.


	3. Conclusion

A/N: Thanks to all readers and reviewers, especially: eau de toilette, TashaX, brianaangel, and Marinka.

CHAPTER THREE

"Why exactly did the great Potter-Weasley marriage fail, I wonder?" asked Draco after a very long pause.

.

Ginny hadn't planned to tell him. She found herself doing it anyway.

"Because Harry always knew," she said.

She felt, rather than saw, Draco's start of surprise. It was the first movement he'd made in a very long time.

"Knew what?" he asked. "I don't suppose you mean the facts about your… tiresome little fling with someone quite unsuitable, shall we say? The one that took place so long ago that you can barely remember it? The one from the lost Hogwarts days, that seventh year of his when he went gallivanting about, leaving you unprotected? Is that what he knew?"

_He's not making this any easier at all,_ she thought. _Of course, it's not as if I thought he would._

"Harry knew that he wasn't the first," she said, staring at an oak tree that rose in the distance beyond the ruins of this wing, twisted and gnarled and old as Stonehenge itself, or older.

"Oh?" Draco asked lightly. His entire body was rigid with tension, but she could see him vibrating with movement, too. "Who had that honor, Weasley? Dean Thomas, I suppose."

"Shut up, Malfoy. You know damn well it was you. How do you think I got in here? Obfirmo would never have allowed me in without… without the magic that I had from what we once did."

"Once, yes. And many years ago."

"It doesn't matter how long ago it was. It's the most powerful magic there is, and you know that it's the only reason I was able to find you at all."

Ginny waited; Draco said nothing. She took advantage of his silence to plow ahead. "That was the least of it. I didn't come to him with a whole heart. Harry's not the most perceptive man in the world, but he knew that, and finally, he didn't want the splintered pieces anymore. I don't blame him."

"I can't blame anyone anymore," said Draco, still not looking at her. "I haven't the energy, I suppose."

She turned on him then, unable to bear the impasse a moment longer. "What rubbish. You've got the energy to mope around and feel sorry for yourself, don't you?"

A faint color began to rise in his cheeks. "I've lost the ancestral seat of the Malfoys and most of the money to boot, not six months ago. And I'm lucky I'm not rotting in Azkaban into the bargain. I'm _not _feeling sorry for myself."

"Then you're doing a bloody good imitation," she retorted.

Draco turned to face her for the first time, and she saw a spark rising in his shimmering gray eyes. "And precisely what is that comment supposed to mean, Weasley?"

"That you've always been rather good at wallowing in self-pity, _Malfoy. _That's mostly what you spent your time doing during your seventh year here!"

"That's not true, and you know it very well!" He was squared off against her now, like an enemy.

"Oh? I seem to remember a boy who would rather sit around the Manor and feel sorry for himself than actually do anything to helpwin the war."

He stabbed a finger into her chest, and she felt a shock spreading all through her even from that contact. It was the first time he had touched her in four years. The first time she'd been this close to him in all that time. "I was torn, Weasley, in ways you'd never understand. Undivided loyalty was all very easy for you and your sort, but I didn't have that luxury."

She cut across his words. "Yes. You weren't wholeheartedly for Voldemort. I know that. But you weren't for anything else, either. Not for the good side—"

"Don't make me laugh; where that sociopath Dumbledore was involved, there was never going to be any good side; only goody-goody Gryffindors would ever believe that shite—"

She talked louder, until she was almost yelling. "That's not the point. The point is that you wouldn't stand up for anything, Malfoy! Not for a cause, not for an idea, and not even for—" Her voice caught, and she couldn't say another word. She didn't have to.

_Not even for me. _The words rang out between them as clearly as if they were spoken.

"No. Tell the truth, Weasley." Draco pressed his face very close to hers, the face of an angry angel. "_You _were the one who left _me."_

"I—I couldn't have done anything else."

"Yes, you could have. And you chose not to."

'I didn't _have _any other choice; I wasn't even seventeen years old yet!"

He laughed. "I was barely sixteen when I was given the order to kill Dumbledore and let the Death Eaters into Hogwarts. Forgive me if I'm less than impressed. You could have made the choice, all right. I was quite aware of your faults, Weasley, just as you knew mine. But I never would have believed that you'd play a coward's part."

She took a single, furious step towards him, and the ground gave way under her feet. He swore something and pulled her back from the edge of a failure in the foundation that had given way into a gaping maw; he yanked her away with so much force that she lost her balance somehow, and they both skidded onto the grass. He fell on top of her. She opened her mouth, whether to yell, or argue, or scream, or cry, she was never sure. But his mouth was open too, and they met in the middle, and then he was kissing her with all of the passion that she remembered from him, and more. And she was kissing him back.

After a very long time, he rolled a little away from her, and they lay side by side, looking up into the sky.

"It's strange," said Draco in a musing voice. "I find that I do want something after all."

She raised her brow at him, questioningly.

"You. As I should have had you four years ago, when I ought to have fought for you. Would you have stayed if I had done that, do you think?"

"Yes," said Ginny, remembering back. It was the truth.

"So what do you want, Ginny? You haven't said."

"Nice to see we're using first names again… Draco." She rolled over onto her stomach and looked him full in the face. She lifted her head, and she saw him fully at last. "I want to rebuild. Just as this manor could be rebuilt."

"Ah. Do you think it's possible?" he asked.

She nodded. "Some parts are still left; I can already see that. The older sections. And I worked on the Hill House restoration in Minneapolis, you know. And the Pittock Mansion in Portland. I've seen it done."

"So you were in America when I tried to—" He stopped short.

"You _did _try to contact me?" She was surprised.

"It never got very far. I sent owls, and when they flew in confused circles and returned to the gazebo house, I simply let it be. I so wish I hadn't done." He looked up at her, his eyes bottomless wells of silver. "You know, I think I'd like to do that as well. Could I apply to the Ministry, do you think? I'm trying to keep my nose clean, so I ought to at least attempt to get permission."

She smiled slightly. "Of course you can. I think I can pull a few strings."

"Then, yes. I'd like to rebuild."

"So would I. More than anything in the world."

They kissed again, and the time seemed to slip by too fast to count the minutes. He raised her to her feet and led her into the gazebo's bedroom, and laid her down on the bed, and pressed kisses all around her neck and ears and throat. But as he laid her down on the bed, she had enough presence to ask one more thing.

"Draco?"

"Mm?" He was starting to undo the top buttons of her blouse, and she found it very hard to think. But this was a question she had to ask.

"Is that brass candlestick really a Malfoy Inanim? Because if it saw us four years ago, it told all the others, and—"

He silenced her with another long, passionate kiss, and somewhere in the middle of it, he threw the candlestick under the bed. Neither of them thought of the table in the kitchen right next to the open door, and so the happy news spread among all the loyal Malfoy Inanims. Although the details were always kept from Draco's old teddy bears, which was exactly as it should be.


End file.
